


indifference is the least

by coloredink



Series: The More Loving One [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, First Time, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-03
Updated: 2013-12-03
Packaged: 2018-01-03 08:36:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1068368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coloredink/pseuds/coloredink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock had to be doing it on purpose.  There was <i>no way</i> he didn't know what it looked like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	indifference is the least

Sherlock fell backward onto the mattress, arms spread. "What about this one?" he called. He allowed a moment to pass, then, "Perhaps this one's not firm enough. I know you like a very firm mattress."

John tightened his jaw and said nothing, strolling down the line of mattresses until he came to the cheap ones at the very end of the store. A salesperson, standing in wait between two beds, had his hands behind his back and did not approach. John was aware of what this looked like: a couple having a spat, one of them refusing to speak to or acknowledge the other. He was aware that in this case, he looked like the villain. After all, Sherlock was merely being helpful. He was willing to defer to John in the matter of the firmness of their mattress, even though they would both be sleeping on it.

Sherlock had to be doing it on purpose. There was _no way_ he didn't know what it looked like when he ordered both their coffees, or went to Tesco with John and added a bottle of wine to the basket, or went bloody mattress shopping with John. Sherlock was genuinely ignorant of many social niceties, but he could also sham normal when it suited him, and that pointed at _some_ knowledge of how human beings worked. 

John wasn't even sure why Sherlock was here. Mattress shopping was the most dull thing there was; Sherlock should have had an aneurysm out of sheer boredom and dropped dead by now.

"What about this one?" Sherlock called.

"It's out of our budget," John called back. "You know that. Come on, the less expensive ones are over here." He tried not to smile in the ensuing baffled silence. 

Finally, Sherlock came swooping down the aisle, his great dark coat flapping behind him like a cape. John was lying down on one of the mattresses.

"What do you think of this one?" he asked.

Sherlock eased himself down onto the mattress next to John, careful not to touch him. "It's all right," he said.

"Just all right? Well, I suppose we get what we pay for. Let's try a few more."

They tried a few more--Sherlock now quiet with his opinions--and John selected a middle-of-the-road mattress. Nothing fancy, no memory foam, but then John was not a fancy man. Sherlock probably had a top-of-the-line mattress, judging from his wardrobe, but he made no remarks.

The delivery date the salesman gave was when John planned to be visiting his sister.

"But that's all right," John said, "Sherlock'll be home. You'll let the delivery men in, won't you?"

Normal Sherlock would do nothing of the sort. But Normal Sherlock also wouldn't be shopping for mattresses with John, and so this Sherlock said, "Of course."

John decided to check in with Mrs Hudson, just in case.

\-----

Sherlock was quiet and seemed to avoid John for the next few days, which suited John just fine. It was amazing how productive John was during those days: he caught up on his emails, updated his CV (not that he had any particular desire to find a regular job, but it never hurt to keep one's options open), drafted two blog entries, cleaned the kitchen, and kept his dentist appointment.

Then, one day, as John was putting on his coat, Sherlock appeared at John's shoulder and demanded, "Where are you going?"

John jumped, bumping into Sherlock, who stiffened and paced away in a wide arc before returning, like a cat that's just been stepped on. "Well?" he asked again.

"Just to the shop," John said, bewildered. "We need food."

"I'll come with you." Sherlock threw on his coat and stuffed his feet in his shoes, whilst John waited, jingling his keys nervously in his hand. This could be no good.

Sure enough, as soon as they were inside Tesco, Sherlock picked up a handbasket and asked John, "Did you remember the list?"

How did Sherlock even know that they had a list? John fished it out of his pocket. "Beans, bread, milk, sugar, tea, eggs. The usual."

Sherlock nodded and set off down one of the aisles.

He seemed to have the layout of the supermarket memorised, which was odd considering he hardly ever set foot in it. Perhaps Sherlock had done a study of supermarket layouts at one point, for a case or just for his own edification. It wasn't unlikely. Whatever the reason, it made for a very efficient trip. John would have appreciated more had he not been tense the entire time.

The other shoe dropped in the tinned soup aisle. John studied the chicken broth--maybe he'd make risotto that week, he hadn't done that in a while--and:

"We ought to get the low-sodium kind."

John froze. His neck creaked as he swung his head around. "Why?"

"I'm worried about your heart," said Sherlock.

John blinked twice. He looked around. Was he on camera? But there was no one except a stout older gentleman with a salt-and-pepper moustache, perusing the tinned beans.

"We're neither of us getting younger," said Sherlock, "and we lead stressful lives. I need you around for a good long time. Get the low sodium kind." And he put the low sodium broth in the basket himself and made for the front of the shop. John followed in a daze.

"Had the same conversation with the missus just last year," said the moustached gentleman, giving John a sympathetic eye. "It's for your own good, trust me."

"Right," said John, and hurried on, to where Sherlock was--and here he thought his heart might actually stop--paying for the shopping.

\-----

They had Thai on Saturday night, and Sherlock ordered John's food for him. He was _right_ , dammit--John _had_ wanted pad see yew--but that wasn't the point; Sherlock was just showing off, and also the waiter gave them a small, skeptical smile, the kind that meant _I'm not homophobic, just so you know, just so that's very clear, I'm going to give you the exact same service as I do everyone else_. It made John's teeth jam against each other. And so, the next time they were at the Coffee Republic, John ordered Sherlock's coffee for him. Sherlock always ordered the same thing--black, two sugars--so this was no miraculous feat on John's part, and yet Sherlock gave him a split-second stare, lips parted and eyes wide, and it felt good.

So it kept happening. Sherlock helped carry the shopping back from Tesco; John held a door open for Sherlock; Sherlock purchased two train tickets to Manchester for a case, "one for my partner and one for me." John retaliated by picking up Sherlock's dry cleaning, which was something he did on a regular basis anyhow, but this time he remarked to the agent that this one particular pair of trousers was "my favourite" (it looked exactly like all the others). Sherlock wasn't even there, so John wasn't sure what point he was trying to prove, except that he was clearly losing his mind.

The problem, of course, was that he did fancy Sherlock. Not in a terrible, heart-clenching, life-destroying head-over-heels way, but in a rather irritating way that resembled having herpes: cold sores that bubbled up every now and again and then receded. He could go whole days, sometimes even weeks without thinking about how beautiful Sherlock was, or how much he'd like to touch Sherlock's hair, or how nice Sherlock's arse really did look in those trousers, and then the light would hit Sherlock's eyes in a certain way or John would run into a bed-tousled Sherlock in the kitchen and he would forget how to breathe.

It was starting to hurt, a little bit. This weird little game reminded John that Sherlock thought of this as, well, just another game. Just another way in which he could manipulate people to think the way he wanted them to think.

\-----

Written at the bottom of the shopping list, in blue biro, was _condoms_. It had a little heart drawn next to it.

John stared. It was Sherlock's handwriting, that he was sure of. It certainly wasn't Mrs Hudson's, and he couldn't think of anyone who might break into their flat just to add prophylactics to the shopping list on the refrigerator. Well; Anderson or Donovan, perhaps, but the chances seemed awfully slim.

They'd never played the game inside their flat. It was something they did in public, to make this barista or that sales clerk think they were a couple. But adding _condoms_ to their shopping list, where no one except John or Mrs Hudson would see it, was breaking the rules. Not that they'd ever clarified the rules; was this to clarify the rules? Was the game something they could play in the flat now?

No. No no no no no. John's head would explode. He squeezed his eyes shut, counted to three, and opened them again. The word was still there, hanging at the bottom of the list. He snatched the scrap of paper off the fridge and stormed into the sitting room, where Sherlock was lying on the couch leafing through _Women's Health_.

"What. Is this." John thrust the list between the magazine and Sherlock's face. Sherlock attempted to rear back, but since he was lying down he did not accomplish much other than giving himself an unattractive double chin.

John watched carefully. Sherlock's eyes flickered down to the bottom of the list, then back up to John's expression of restrained fury, then off to one side, then somewhere in the middle distance just above and beyond John's head. "It's a shopping list," he said.

"And you added condoms to it. Don't tell me that's not your handwriting." John let the list slip from between his fingers. It drifted down to land on Sherlock's chest. "Explain yourself."

Sherlock's eyes narrowed; this was what John thought of as his "calculating" face. His words spit out in regulated machine gun patter. "You're angry. Why are you angry? You didn't get angry any of the other times. Frustrated, yes, but not like this. Something's different, something's changed."

John opened his mouth and shut it. He pressed his tongue up against the backs of his teeth. What could he say? He didn't get angry when it happened in public because there it was something he could compartmentalize? He was upset that their twisted little pretence was seeping into more personal corners of his life? What would have happened if he'd just gone and bought those condoms? What would have happened if he'd just left them on Sherlock's bed when he wasn't home? Would Sherlock have upped the ante? How?

Sherlock watched John with narrowed eyes, magazine pressed against his chest. He sat up, slowly, as if John might spook and bolt, and dropped the magazine onto the floor. "John."

John dropped his chin and studied the floor between his feet. "Why do you do this to me?"

The briefest pause before Sherlock said, enunciating each word as if he needed to keep his speech as slow and careful as his movements, "Do what?"

"Make people think we're a couple?" John mashed his hands against his face. His previous anger had drained out of him like water through a sieve as soon as he'd pictured a box of condoms on Sherlock's bed. Now he wished he'd never brought it up. "You do it on purpose, I know you do. There's no way you can't know."

Sherlock paused again. John didn't dare look at him. He saw Sherlock's feet land on the floor, so he knew that Sherlock was sitting up now. "Why do _you_?"

John didn't ask _Why do I what_ because he knew what Sherlock was asking. He suddenly wanted to snatch the list up and run to the shops, make an excuse and duck out, he wanted a client to come banging on the door right now, but no. Bravery was just another word for stupidity, wasn't it? "It was, I dunno, I was just taking the piss at first, see how you like it and all that."

"But I didn't react the way you thought I would," Sherlock said in a gentler version of his interrogating-the-witness voice.

John shook his head. Although honestly, how had he thought Sherlock would react? Did he think Sherlock would get flustered and drop the act? That Sherlock would stammer and protest? No; there had only been that brief, collected moment of surprise, and yet that had been enough. It was so rare for anyone to get the upper hand on Sherlock Holmes. "And it was sort of...fun. Like a secret that only we knew about."

Sherlock's smile was audible. "We have a great many secrets between us."

"We do." John looked up. Sherlock was sitting up on the couch, his elbows on his knees and fingertips placed against each other. Now was one of those unfathomable moments when Sherlock looked especially beautiful, even dressed in a ratty old dressing gown, his t-shirt inside-out, his hair an incredible tangle. In this position Sherlock had to look up at John, and the line of his throat and the sweep of his collarbone were breathtaking.

"I did it because I wanted it to be true," said Sherlock.

The words swirled in John's brain until they heaped together into sense. John shook his head, like he was trying to dislodge water from his ears, but the words were still there. "What?"

"I wanted it to be true." Sherlock said it without a single tremor that might betray any vulnerability or fear, but John saw his throat move as he swallowed, saw Sherlock blink twice, three times in rapid succession. "I wanted people to know it when they saw us. It allowed me to play out fantasies that otherwise existed only in my mind."

John realised his jaw was hanging open. He shut it and ran his tongue around his lips. "I. I see."

Sherlock said nothing. He did nothing. He was so still John was afraid he'd expire from lack of air.

John took a deep breath. "Well, I. I. I was taking the piss, at first. But then. I." He licked his lips again. "I want it too." He took another deep breath. "I've wanted it for a while."

It was a horribly awkward kiss, as they were both in awkward positions. Sherlock was still half-sitting on the couch, craning forward so that he could meet John over the coffee table. John had one knee up on the table and was leaning out over it, and his knee and back protested both the activity and the hard surface. The kiss had to end out of necessity, and then Sherlock got up off the couch just as John was trying to get around the coffee table and they all but collided in the middle. Finally they both made it onto the sofa, snogging like desperate teenagers even as John felt every minute of his age.

"I had to," Sherlock gasped. "I thought that maybe--perhaps--but I needed more data, I--"

"So you put condoms on the shopping list to see what would happen, yes, shut up," John muttered. "Shut up, idiot, shut up."

Sherlock shut up.

\---end---

**Author's Note:**

> [coloredink.tumblr.com](http://coloredink.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [sumiwrites.wordpress.com](https://sumiwrites.wordpress.com/) (if you wanna see the books I've written)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [indifference is the least- TŁUMACZENIE](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4856822) by [Toootie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toootie/pseuds/Toootie)




End file.
